designing a novel and high performance online english for business ...

participants have to carry out and personal abilities or participant proficiency which is evaluated orPresent Situation Analysis (PSA). Most of the participants in Business English are non-native speakersof English that based on TSA want to participate in global business language. Consequently, a precourseanalysis is essential for a successful EBP course, for the reason that, at the need analysis stagethe prerequisite information that construct the foundation of training programs will be identify. Basedon the analysis, authentic and interactive activities that closely organized in the development of courseobjectives, will be construct. But if the learner recognizes some of the services and activities have notcontributed to the rapid advance of the learning process, there would be no way to adapt or change it.Besides, providing online authentic materials and services according to Business real situation requireda long period of analyzing. Web-based training based on authentic services is to some extent necessaryto EBP course because currently the new commercial transaction and Business commercials areconducting over the Internet.The present study is focus on: How EBP courses benefit from Mashup application in order toprovide high performance service for Business English students.The paper is organized in the following sections. First, we consider the challenges and issuesin the steps of designing EBP courses, the second section will devote to the technical framework anddesign of the software and, the final section include suggestion on the implementation of Mashup toolin EBP course.1.1 Issues in EBP course designConsidering the steps refer to in the previous part, one find out that behind successful EBPcourses is process of ascertaining what a course should contain? [3]. The answer directly related to theinformation that can be available by need analysis, which is different in relation to student‟ perception.For example the course that is going to designed for business managers in a company can be muchmore varied than those in similar situation because the participants and consequently their needs havebeen changed. Due to this fact there are several methods that employ to need analysis. One of theprevailing methods especially for EBP courses is using questionnaires. The data gathering by thismethod require a computer software analysis. Nelson (1994) [2] starts with placement test and a needsanalysis questionnaire. The information were processed by computer and the final results will bedrawn by using charts include needs and wants of the students. There is a manual override to thesystem at all stages so that teachers can influence the process [2]. Reeves and Wright (1996) [2]introduced LANA (LAnguage Needs Analysis). Again the software analyses the responses that isprovided by interviews, modeling, and a computer-based questionnaire [2]. The result will bepresented by a three dimensional histograms. Munby‟s Communicative Syllabus Design (1978) [2] isone of the well-known works on need analysis. Munby in order to find out target situation analysis usea set of procedures called Communication Needs Processor (CNP). It consists of a range of questionsabout key communication variables (topic, participants, medium etc.) which can be used to identify thetarget language needs of any group of learners [3]. There are a number of other procedures introducedby Jones „Principle Component Analysis (PCA), Mackay (1978), Cohen and Mannion (1980),Richterich and Chancerel (1980), totally they are listed as; questionnaires, interviews, consultation,observation, data collection [3]. So to establish a workable course design three important types ofneeds analysis need to perform, TSA (Target situation Analysis), LSA (Learning situation Analysis),and PSA(Present Situation Analysis) (Dudley-Evans and St John 1998) [5].Generally speaking, the recognized methods are time consuming. If we want to providebusiness people with the services they need, some instruments is required to gathering information inorder to know the participants. There is a direct relationship between objectives and student needs.Business English students either want to become more experienced in their job or study English foracademic business study. It is essential to be aware of student‟s real goal. However, adapting activitiesand skills to the fulfilment of the goals might be demanding. Because instructional design should meetthe needs and preferences of the students. As we know the characteristic of online EBP courses islimited time. A businessperson is too busy that mostly they prefer not wasting too many time to reachtheir desired purpose. Determining and gathering information is a matter, interpreting the answers isanother. With regard to where they need to be, we should conduct or interpret need analysis.Throughout these activities there might be misconceptions or false information that may cause not tohave a clear definition of the purpose of the instruction. This fact enables students to reach the end

target and as a result of that the objectives may not be determined precisely. Consequently the requiredactivities for fulfillment of them will not be acceptable.Identifying and recognizing needs doesn‟t stop after the first step, but we should keepchecking „was that useful based on student need?‟ Tony Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo St. John [2]suggest that analyzing authentic texts is a crucial stage of need analysis that is‟ Authenticity is theproperty of purpose and the level of the text that is the text should accompany with the purpose and thelevel of the students‟ [2]. That is, a text or activity which is organized or designed for Job-experiencedlearners will not be appropriate for a pre-job experienced. Moreover, authenticity in level, increaselearner‟s interests and motivation and therefore, encourage active participation of learners in usinglanguage for the determined purpose. Business English students require a course that improves theirability to use language for needs and goals. So, there might be tools to guarantee the authenticity ofpurpose and level of services. We recognize that implementing Mashup tool in EBP course design mayprovide a service that would facilitate learning Business English.1.2 Mashup and EBPThe technology revolution has brought many changes in on-line courses as a result of thatMost EBP courses are placed on the Internet and can be used by any students. In other wordsconsistent with broader trends in higher education, the delivery of education via the Internet has takenon increasing importance for business schools (Popovich & Neel, 2005) [9]. The general format forsuch courses is that learners follow them on their own. There are a number of web-based distancelearning services and applications designed for EBP students. With respect to the features of Webbasedlearning environment, most of them generally characterized as: meeting the needs of the users,selecting media regarding objectives, increase user‟s interaction, and speed learning. The significantfactor above all is that; they try to follow Learner-centered curriculum. That is, learners are incomplete involvement with their learning. Considering current websites of EBP courses, the coursesare originally for learning a variety of different Business subject matters through the effective use ofInternet technologies. They start instruction by completing need analysis forms. It includesdetermining the level of students and specific area of their requirement. A list of multimedia activitiesand material are constructed in a set of units around needs of students.In conformity with [1] generally, a Mashup comprises an application that combines multiplesets of data streams into a unified user experience. In relation to Web “Mashup” can be defined as asituational web application that extract and combines data and functionality from different sources tosupport user needs and tasks [7]. And finally with regard to e-learning, within the context of learningobject repositories, aggregation of information junks is realized according to instructional models andon terms of standards and specifications, such as LOM or SCORM. In relation to EBP, We defineMashup as: an application that surf the Internet and integrate services based on your needs anddemands. Using Mashup in EBP courses is concerned with Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).This model determine the number of factors have an effect on user‟s decision in using a newtechnology. One of these factors defined by Fred Davis as Perceived Usefulness refer to „the degree towhich a person believes that using a particular system enhance his or her job performance (Wikipedia).By using Mashup users benefit from various web-based tools and services. Since applying Mashup isbased on, combining services to support user‟s needs, the degree of Perceived Usefulness can be muchhigher in EBP web-based courses. In fact it is cooperation between services in order to provide aperfect outcome. Employing Mashup is a relatively new phenomenon among EBP web coursesbecause the course is not restricted to a set of ready-to-use bank of sources or activities which thewebsite designed for a particular subject, but it fetch other online services in terms that it support theuser demands, accordingly provide a list of activities or authentic material that allow different types ofBusiness English students (whether interest in marketing, management, etc.) benefit from the coursematerial.Two important issues in EBP courses mentioned before as; authenticity of purpose andauthenticity of level is supported by Mashup. The need analysis form is provided for recognizing TSAand the level of learners and utilize as repository for Mashup to merge the services into one webapplication.Mashup help English business learners to find the most appropriate materials that improvetheir job knowledge skills .For Business English learners taking part in courses with determined

outcomes will be highly motivating. In fact Mashup create a community of online services based onBusiness English‟s demand.The aim of this project is first, to develop a Mashup framework for EBP courses as onesolution to problems in web-based EBP need analysis, and second, to construct a web-based courseaccess authentic activities and text with a minimum of effort that exploit instructional online tools andservices to integrate them for a useful online course. We hope this new study develop the applicationof Mashups for EBP courses.II.METHODOLOGYIn current study Mashup tools apply for web-based EBP course. The great advantage of suchan application is that there is no need to spend on need analyses or interpreting data for the reason ofestablishing an appropriate design for online EBP course. But, as the students „requirements of thecourse is recognized by the software, it surf the Internet services render activities which best match tothe needs of the learner. Besides, learners are not restricted to some types of pedagogical activitiespresented by one web-service but they exploit similar activities in other online services or websites.Learners are in direct interaction with the software, so that they can control their own learning pace.Such involvement of learners offer a new instructional environment in on-line EBP courses. Themethodology of this study is discussed in such an order: Technical design and the structure of thesoftware, Integration of Mashup with EBP on-line course and the final section is a sample testify.2.1 Technical design and the structure of the softwareThe software design is conducted under a triple-ware schema to achieve information andfiltered data from the internet and related services must to be merged and provided as an interface toend user. Figure 1 provides an explicit explanation about the triple-ware schema. It shows a completedata flow of the information from the beginning of the process to its end.Figure 1. Triple-ware schemaThe Triple-ware schema‟ function follow these steps: First, we design a script in EMML(Enterprise Mashup Markup Language) language to invoke data from the web by using web servers- inour proposed solution is tomcat 5.5- and the implementation backplane of Mashup. The engine usesJDK (Java Development Kit 1.5) on the windows platform.After that Mashup apply forced script to surf the net and web services to fetch data. The outputfile will be created in this step; data presented in the XML (Extensible Markup Language) formatcontain some elements with optional attributes. So, XML file will be available to use, the elements actas input for the next step. The third step is the main part for the users, which is the implementation ofsoftware in the .Net environment by C# language programming to fetch data from the XML file as aninput feed in the special form. It is done in a friendly design to be used by learners. In this step the userrequirement will be asked. According to it Mashup outline short abstract so that the proper data will beavailable for the user. If any of the information does not satisfy the user, the URL (Universal Resourcelocator) can be clicked to gain extra information in order to show the original source of data.2.2 Integration of Mashup into EBPThe course is proposed for intensive web-based EBP courses, respectively run for jobexperiencedstudents who bring business knowledge and skills to the language-learning situation. Thenature of the course is mainly focus on the learners as a main source of need analysis. Some pre-courseinformation is obtained by completing a short form of questionnaire. The approach for designing theEBP course is the integration of skill-centered and learning-centered approach. The former makes the

learning situation dependent on the target situation analysis. The learner is used to identify and toanalyze the target situation. It provide opportunities for learners to employ and evaluate the skills andstrategies considered necessary in the target situation [3]. The latter consider interest, enjoyment,learner involvement influence the entire course [3]. In this study not only highlight the importance oflearners preference and involvement in selecting their own activities but also the appropriate skills andexercises is presented to cope in target situation. The process of need analysis and lay down courseobjectives is handled by the learners. That is the course objectives that have been laid down areappropriate for learner.Figure 2. Screenshot for start pageThe curriculum design of the course conduced in Mashup is as follows:Need analysis: West argues that an essential feature of a good needs analysis is that it takesinto account the preferences of the learners in terms of both what to learn and styles of learning (1997)[11]. So in this level the learner complete a form which is similar to a questionnaire, in addition theyshould study and fill it in carefully. It is designed on the basis of learners „need of the course, level,and objectives they assume to be able to carry out as the result of training. For example „to be able towrite effective business report‟. By completing the form in fact the objective of the course isdetermined too.Fetching links: Unlike other methods, the information analysis and interpretation for designingand determining appropriate activities will be managed by the software. The information that is gainedduring need analysis is employed to Mashup. Having completed the form the learner click the invokebottom (Figure 2). The invoke bottom make Mashup to surf the Internet, in other words fetch theonline services and activities related to online EBP services and websites. Information provided by thestudent in the previous step is the only factor taken into account by Mashup to fetch the Web servicesthat include text-based or html-formatted documents, or online activities. This means that, the outlinedactivities are best matched to learners „level, course objectives, and above all learners‟ specific needs.Activities and links will be appeared in the “fetching List” (Figure 3).Selecting Activities: We can relate this step to the complete involvement of the student for tworeasons: first, they identify and select activities from fetching list. Most of the students in this stepneed activities to improve their language skills. On the other hand, Since the selection of activities iscarried on according to the needs of a particular student, the “fetching list” provide a short snippetsabove each link and activities to show a coherence between the needs of students and the curriculumstructure. Reading that short snippet ensure that the course provides adequate and appropriate coverage

of activities to achieve their end. Second, users of EBP course identify their own pace of learning.Having read the snippets, learner confirms it or click on next button to see the following URL. There isa timetable button on the right side of “fetching list” that business user can establish an order for thecourse based on confirmed services and a schedule to practice the activities.Evaluation and assessment: A formative evaluation takes place during the lifetime of thecourse [2]. A mini-evaluation undertake in the middle of course and the final evaluation at the end ofthe course. The advantage is that if the mini-evaluation doesn‟t show positive achievements within theparticular activity in fetching list, the student can select another. The evaluation button is located intimetable windows which enable students to avoid less successful aspects in course.2.3 The studyFigure 3. Screenshot for Mashup s‟ fetching listIn this section we just try to testify the course in relation to individual users. Participants inthis study were ten job-experienced Iranian students. All 10 participants took part in the studyvoluntarily. Some of them were students in an English Language Learning Centre. Four of participantswere computer engineers, one bank teller, and five accountants. A checklist proposed by Clarice S.C.Chan [10] was applied for evaluating Mashup functions on the basis of EBP pedagogical considerationto illustrate the value of Mashup component according to the requirement form. Each of theparticipants completed the need analysis form then clicked on the invoke button. Considering thefetching lists, general observations include the following:· The majority of services were suitable for job-experienced learners.· Most of the materials closely fit learner‟s needs that were highly motivating.· Access to authentic material was easier for the learners for example in the case of the needto „negotiate in stock market „some financial news headline from Yahoo! was fetched.· It provides wide choices over activities and services in relationship to learners„professional practice.· It establishes multidisciplinary URL. For example some new models of trades andelectronic commerce that enhance competitiveness of Business English learners werepresented in fetching list.According to these finding we realize that Mashup in online EBP courses is easy enough for areal course implementation. It promotes online learning and creates a supportive environment for EBPlearners.

IV.CONCLUSIONSConsidering the recent movement toward online web-based l Business English courses and thedevelopment of international contact, Users of EBP courses need to use English so that they canachieve more in their job and in e-commerce. In this study, we tried to propose a workable web-basedtraining based on Mashup that allows self-directed, self-paced learning in any topic related to BusinessEnglish. Each step of designing has focused on meeting the needs of the user. The basic innovation inthis paper is applying Mashup for designing Business English web-based training that dynamicallyadapt to the user needs. The course is not restricted to a specific service but, it can benefit from variousonline services or authentic activities available in search engines to enable the users to communicateeffectively in their job. The issue based on Mashup is still open to discussion, especially in expandingcourses for pre-experienced users or the number of participants to run the course for.AcknowledgementsThe first author would like to thank her devoted husband for his comments on this study. Theauthors wish to acknowledge Dr.Farzad Salahshoor for motivating his students towards innovationsand researches on online EBP courses.References[1] Kulathuramaiyer, N, 2007. Mashups: Emerging Application Development Paradigm for a Digital Journal. In:Journal of Universal Computer Science 13(4), 531-542(2007).[2] Tony Dudley-Evans and Maggie Jo ST John, 1998. Development in English for Specific purposes, CambridgeUniversity Press. United Kingdom, 7th edition.[3] Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters, 1987. English for Specific purposes a learning - centred approach, CambridgeUniversity Press. United Kingdom, pages 91.[4] Mark Ellis and Christine Johnson, 1994. Teaching Business English, Oxford University Press.[5] Slavica Cepon, 2005, Business English in practical Terms, Scripta Manent(1) 45-54, page 52.[6] Zuocheng Zhang, 2007. Towards an integrated approach to teaching Business English: A Chinese experience. In:English for specific purposes 26(2007)399-410. Available online www.ScienceDirect.com, page 402.[7] D. Merrill. Mashups: The new breed of Web app. 2006.[8] Krassen Stefanov, Roumen Nikolov Faculty of Mathematics and informatics, University of Sofia, page 4.[9] J.B. Arbaugh, Michael R. Godfrey, Marianne Johnson, Birgit Leisen Pollack, Bruce Niendorf, WilliamWresch.Research in the business disciplines: Key findings and possible future directions online and blendedlearning.[10] Clarice S.C. Chan, 2009. Forging a link between research and pedagogy: A holistic framework for evaluatingbusiness English materials. In: English for Specific Purposes 28 (2009) 125–136, available online. www.ScienceDirect.com, pag 1.[11] Shu-Chiao Tsai, 2010. Developing and integrating courseware for oral presentations into ESP learning contexts. In:Computers & Education 55 (2010) 1245–1258, journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu[12] Erhard Rahm, Andreas Thor, David Aumueller. Dynamic Fusion of Web Data, University of Leipzig, Germany,http://dbs.uni-leipzig.de,5th International XML Database Symposium, XSym 2007, Vienna, Austria, September 23-24, 2007 Proceedings pag14.[13] Andreas Thor, David Aumueller, Erhard Rahm, 2007. Data Integration Support for Mashups, University of Leipzig,Germany, Copyright © 2007, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligent (www.aaai.org).